Is monasticism an outdated concept or can its principles still be of value in today's fast-paced world? We had a riveting discussion about monasticism and contemplative Christianity with our esteemed guests, Drs. Michael Papazian (philosophy), Larry Marvin (history), and Marshall Jenkins (counseling). Together, we explored various features of monastic lifestyles and the relevance of monasticism in the 21st century.
After playing "Monk or Bunk?", our conversation delved into Michael Papazian's experiences of teaching a course on monasticism and Christian spirituality at Berry College, where students engage in contemplative practices such as Lectio Divina. We discussed the potential benefits of incorporating these principles into our modern lives. Join us for this enlightening and thought-provoking conversation on monasticism and contemplative Christianity.
NEW FEATURE: Our guests often continue the conversation with fascinating additional insights after the formal recording is over. Church Potluck now plans to record those additional conversations and include them as unedited "leftovers" at the end of the podcast (thus the longer episode length). Shout-out to Christy Snider for the "Leftovers" moniker!
The views expressed on Church Potluck are solely those of the participants and do not represent any organization.
Is monasticism an outdated concept or can its principles still be of value in today's fast-paced world? We had a riveting discussion about monasticism and contemplative Christianity with our esteemed guests, Drs. Michael Papazian (philosophy), Larry Marvin (history), and Marshall Jenkins (counseling). Together, we explored various features of monastic lifestyles and the relevance of monasticism in the 21st century.
After playing "Monk or Bunk?", our conversation delved into Michael Papazian's experiences of teaching a course on monasticism and Christian spirituality at Berry College, where students engage in contemplative practices such as Lectio Divina. We discussed the potential benefits of incorporating these principles into our modern lives. Join us for this enlightening and thought-provoking conversation on monasticism and contemplative Christianity.
NEW FEATURE: Our guests often continue the conversation with fascinating additional insights after the formal recording is over. Church Potluck now plans to record those additional conversations and include them as unedited "leftovers" at the end of the podcast (thus the longer episode length). Shout-out to Christy Snider for the "Leftovers" moniker!
The views expressed on Church Potluck are solely those of the participants and do not represent any organization.
Alright, so we've already gone around the table, but nothing much going on this summer yet. Larry, not much, not much. Michael, no, nothing, no, nothing much. And Marshall, you said you got big plans this afternoon. Yeah, mow the ditch this afternoon. Mow the ditch. So how long of a project is mowing the ditch? Oh, it's too long, but the weather's nice. Well, good, that is good. So welcome everyone to Church Potluck, where we are serving up a smorgasbord of Christian Curiosity. I'm your host, dale McConkey, sociology professor and United Methodist pastor, and you know there are two keys to a good church potluck Plenty of variety and engaging conversation. And this is exactly what we try to do here on Church Potluck, the podcast, sitting down with friends and we share ideas on a variety of topics from a variety of academic disciplines and a variety of Christian traditions. Well, what is on the table for today? Can anyone translate this?
Speaker 3:It's time for lunch, exactly.
Speaker 1:Monks, nuns, monasteries, convents, contemplative Christianity. Is the monastic life an antiquated way of life designed for social outcasts, or is monasticism a vibrant approach to life that can still nourish our souls today? These are the questions we are going to explore in this episode of Church Potluck, and we have a blue ribbon panel of guests who are going to help us explore this issue. First, we have one of our returning experts to Church Potluck, dr Michael Papazian Hi.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, i'm glad to be back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's good. You've been on quite a few episodes, Yeah. I think, it's number eight.
Speaker 4:Oh, you're actually tracking Keep it track.
Speaker 1:That's right, and you actually had the idea for this potluck, so we'll talk more about that in a little bit, but thank you, go ahead and give your bumpy days one more time.
Speaker 4:Professor Philosophy at Berry College and I teach. I've been teaching a class on monasticism and Christian spirituality.
Speaker 1:I'm looking forward to hearing more about that for sure. And our next guest we have Dr Larry Marvin Boo Oh wrong, i am so sorry, i am so sorry, That was not intentional. A Freudian slip Yes, it is Usually I say this for Dr Bailey sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally, but that one was 100% accidentally. There you go. That's what you deserve. Yeah, So it's the first time you're on the podcast and then I just turn on you.
Speaker 1:No, I know what you're really thinking There you go, there you go. But, larry, this is your second time on the show and we had a great time with you on the first one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me back.
Speaker 1:Well, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3:I am a professor of history at Berry College and I specialize in the European Middle Ages, and so I spend a lot of time actually in my classes talking about monasticism and various types of monasticism as well Christian monasticism.
Speaker 1:Great, wonderful to have you on the podcast and our final guest, which I will not press the wrong button for you, especially as a newcomer to the show We have, dr Marshall Jenkins. Yay, marshall Marshall, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:I'm a psychologist in private practice in Rome.
Speaker 1:And a former.
Speaker 2:Berry And a former Berry Director of Counseling, and I think I'm here because I also do some spiritual direction. I've written a few books and blog on Christian spirituality and with a very contemplative slant on things.
Speaker 1:And in fact we were going to originally do this podcast last week but we couldn't because I was at a contemplative retreat and I transgressed and checked my text. I did notice that I was going to wonder whether that So was that actually against the rules.
Speaker 1:No, no, it was pretty loose. Okay, got you. Well, wonderful, we're going to be talking about the contemplative life, we're going to be talking about monasticism, and I can't think of any better way to get into that other than a game show. Want to do a game show, guys? I guess, all right. Yeah, all right, this game show, we're going to call this Monk or Bunk. Is this statement that I say something true of the monastic life and contemplative Christianity, or is this something that is a bunch of bunk, just nonsense? So we'll just give your answer and then one quick sentence to explain your answer perhaps. So, larry, you're on my left. We're going to go ahead and start with you. Monk or Bunk Monasteries are places for mega introverts and social outcasts.
Speaker 3:Monk or Bunk? Is there a combination of the two?
Speaker 1:Go ahead.
Speaker 3:Well, i think they've accommodated both, so, but yeah, well, now I'm floundering. But yeah, no, i think that you could make the case for either one. Okay, so, michael, yes, michael, what pays in your turn?
Speaker 4:Yeah. so yeah, bunk, because I mean monks and monasteries are really diverse places and there are so many different personalities that Okay, marshall, i see you nodding, your head Bunk or Bunk.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say Bunk Also. I know that if you look at the actual facts, there's probably plenty of, there's plenty of monk to it, but I think, in terms of they want to be very careful that people are there because for the positive reason of being called to be there. Gotcha All right, oops, all right.
Speaker 1:Next question A monk's life is a boring life. Monk or Bunk?
Speaker 3:Larry, that's clearly Bunk. I mean, it may be quiet and contemplative, but it would never have been boring, not in the middle ages and not even now, gotcha.
Speaker 4:Michael, i agree with Larry, it's Bunk. The life can be very exciting. There are a lot of things to do, all right.
Speaker 2:Marshall, you're going to agree with that too. I'm going to say Bunk, and just add in there that the if one thinks that going into a monastery is getting away from dealing with people, that's false. So much of what we experience in our everyday lives out here is experienced there, gotcha.
Speaker 1:All right, good answer, good answer, all right. Third question The monastic life focuses on the inner soul at the expense of reaching out to serving others. Monk or Bunk, this time we're going to go with Marshall first.
Speaker 2:Let him answer first, okay, Inner soul at the expense of reaching out to others. That's Bunk. The contemplative life it's synergistic. It draws one out to compassion and actions with people Great.
Speaker 4:Can I create another category? Go ahead Half Bunk.
Speaker 1:That's what I tried to do the first time Okay.
Speaker 4:So yeah, i mean I think that there are cases where monasticism has become very sort of separated from the world and unconnected, that's. I would consider that to be an abuse of monasticism, but it does happen. But true monasticism, as I understand it, is very oriented towards the world, and so we see different examples throughout history of this.
Speaker 3:All right, great And Larry. Well, the exception of some isolated orders within Western monasticism, monks always interacted with the world, and they still do now.
Speaker 1:So Great. Thank you very much. Good answer, good answer. All right, we'll start with Michael Papasian for this final one here. Oh, monk or Bunk, a monk's life is attainable in our modern society.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, definitely Monk. Yes, definitely monk Can be done, people do it. I mean, just look at examples, great.
Speaker 1:Well, i guess, since you are striving for this, that you would definitely say Definitely monk, definitely monk, all right.
Speaker 3:And Larry, i would say monk. I think a lot of people live monastic lives. They just don't realize it And so they wouldn't put a label on it, but they are indeed actually living the life of a monk.
Speaker 1:Great. Well, thank you all of you for playing Monk or Bunk. All right, now it's time for our regularly scheduled podcast. Let's get into this Now. We've got some of the context behind it. Michael, you were the one who kind of came up with this idea, kind of spurred on and inspired not only by your class, but by a New York Times article that captured a lot, and so why don't you talk a little bit about that context? but just feel free to flow into your what you do in your course as well.
Speaker 4:Right. Well, it was an article that would just appear by Molly Whirthin, who's a historian at the University of North Carolina, chapel Hill, and she talked about a course that's offered at University of Pennsylvania that actually allowed students to do contemplative activities and live Kind of like a monk. And that struck me because I designed a course a few years ago that now has the title Christian spirituality. I thought it just this last semester, but I did it two years ago the first time and I just thought it's interesting because the way I came to it was I didn't realize that This was being done at other universities and colleges.
Speaker 1:So, just like every good idea you have you in particular every good idea Somebody's already, everyone else is doing it but no, i like that.
Speaker 4:I actually, as I'm part of a trend It says I'm not just some isolated person who's doing something that nobody else is doing, but this is, this is something maybe we're on the cutting edge of, something is gonna be huge in the next few years. So, yeah, yeah, so anybody I can tell you about how I came to it, i guess. Yeah, i'll try to be brief because it's a long history, so I'll be very brief. Basically, it also will be the judge of that. Okay, i know I should.
Speaker 4:Do like it's too long to speech by saying I'll be brief, because it never is, but I will be brief, and so you have not been brief and telling us that you're going to.
Speaker 4:This was a great year, 2015, amazing year. I so, yeah, i turned 50 that year. Now, that's not the reason why, but that also was hundredth year anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian genocide, which began in 1915. I'm the grandson of Survivors of that genocide, which was an attempt by the Ottoman Empire to eradicate the Armenian population.
Speaker 4:So in that year, at the Vatican, pope Francis celebrated a mass in which he commemorated the martyrs of the of the Armenian Genocide, but also he made and named as a doctor of the church a saint and a monk in the Armenian tradition named Saint Gregory of Nadek. And so and that that was quite a big deal, because the Armenian Church is not part of the Catholic Church, is out of communion, but Saint Gregory of Nadek, who's Armenian Christian, is now a doctor of the Catholic Church. So I said, okay, i got to do something. The Pope just gave me a gift I need to write a book about explaining his theology and his way of life and his writings. So I did, and that was published in 2019 by liturgical press, and so, as part of that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, okay, i have self citation.
Speaker 4:It's right, so as part of that, Yeah but I wrote the book during my sabbatical and so my basic take on that is that, like it's not sabbatical shouldn't just be about me, i need to give back to the institution. So why don't I do a course? because I had to do a lot of research on monasticism and All I said. Why don't I do a course about all the different spiritual practices that Gregory and other monks did? because I've done all this Research and I think students might like it. I don't know, maybe they will, and so that's what I did, and I guess I don't know was in the 2020 2021, i think first time I taught this course.
Speaker 4:I had maybe about 20 students and It just I thought it was gonna be a flop, because the first time you teach something is terrible. Right, it wasn't. I mean, people loved it. I was there raving about it. I taught it again this past semester and I had 20 students and they loved it, and so I said, oh, maybe this is something, this was good and maybe there's a hunger for this. Yes, but I did in. The course was not. My view is that I'm not just interested in studying the background, the history. I want to actually look into how we can actually learn things from it, right, so how we can be better people, live better lives if we can learn from some of these contemplative practices. So that's the story.
Speaker 1:That's why I got to where I am now and that was a very good summary and thank you so much. Just very quickly, did you have your students engage in some of the practices, such as the the New York Times article Suggested?
Speaker 4:yes, i was a little bit afraid because some of the things that we're doing were kind of a little bit Pretty radical. Yeah, i'm not talking wearing different clothes depending upon your gender. I can't go that. I can't do that. There are certain things I, but I did have them do. Things are a little bit more, perhaps, less intrusive, less controlling of people, things like just, for example, alexio Divina.
Speaker 4:Okay, so there's a little bit Latin divine reading, sacred reading. Sometimes it's translated as this is a way of reading the Bible. Actually, the way I understand it is not so much the person is reading the Bible, but the Bible is reading you, or God is reading you through the Bible. So one way you can approach studying the Bible and a lot of our students are familiar with Bible study, or your at least Academic study of the Bible where you're trying to make sense of it, put it within its historical context.
Speaker 4:But this is a different kind of reading, a slow reading. You don't read very much, maybe just a verse. You pray, you reflect, you meditate, you seize on certain words that may have some significance for you and how you're living your life right now and Focus on that. So you're actually. It's a contemplative practice that involves very slow, careful, methodical, spiritual reading of a text, and I did have students try to do that and write about it, write a journal article, what did they learn? What did they think about this and all. So that'd be one example of what I did, but there were all sorts of things that happened.
Speaker 1:Did you find that they enjoyed that as a Alternative to the traditional Bible study where you get out your commentaries in the context, right The usual?
Speaker 4:response was like it's not that they said I still like my Bible study, i still like what we do and I still like taking Old Testament or New Testament classes and studying that, but this is an alternative way of doing it and they saw the validity and the importance of it. I think that's what it did. The course does is it broadens people's views of Christianity and see that there are multitude of practices that are Worthwhile, that they didn't even know about or weren't even completely aware of.
Speaker 1:Marshall, i see you nodding your head throughout a lot of that very brief discussion that Michael Pippeisian hope it was, but it seems like you probably connect with a lot of what he was saying right there.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, the likes here to beina is a wonderful practice for getting into the contemplative prayer and your contemplation is, and mysticism really is, very responsive to the book. And I was thinking, as you major comment, about commentaries, the academic approach, that information approach, versus the formation approach that Michael was talking about.
Speaker 2:That read a book by just Outstanding major New Testament scholar, luke Timothy Johnson citation who, professor emeritus from Amory, great New Testament scholar and a book he wrote fairly early in his career on discernment. And it was very interesting to see that this scholar, who just has written about every word in the New Testament for scholars to to refer to and people who were studying to refer to when he came down to What he would envision for The church, it was getting together and reading very much in that like see Oda Vina style, see How it affects you, how it informs you, allow the Bible to speak to you, as opposed to that very cognitive approach that he's Giving us every resource for.
Speaker 3:Great. Actually, i have a question, and that is does this have any resemblance at all to loyalist spiritual exercises?
Speaker 4:We do talk about the Jesuits and we do read Ignatius loyalist writings, and so we do talk about spiritual exercises and there is a relationship. I mean in terms of what?
Speaker 3:I know They're not exactly the same, but it sounds like there's yeah similar goals there, maybe yeah, i mean, that's one approach, that, and it's different.
Speaker 4:So part of the spiritual exercises for the Jesuits would be these very vivid Imaginings of be putting yourself in a biblical scene, like I'm at the crucifixion right now and just imagining it. And I do talk about that. And one reason why I think that's also important because my background is in philosophy. I don't, i've never studied theology, really, i just learned it myself. But when we study, for example, descartes in philosophy as Descartes was educated by Jesuits, that's right, and so I've never as a philosopher this never came up right. They don't talk about it, but Descartes is known for these very vivid thought experiments. You know what could be? could it be possible? This is all a dream. Maybe there's an evil demon that's deceiving me, and the idea I had was was this Jesuit background?
Speaker 3:I think that's a good influence in him Yeah.
Speaker 4:So one of the reasons one things that I love about the course is that you can actually understand philosophy better if you actually understand The spiritual exercises and the contemplative practices. So it has that Sort of residual. I didn't even intend that to happen, but for the philosophy majors in the course they're learning that's broadening their perspective on philosophy too interesting interesting, larry.
Speaker 1:why don't you provide us with some context here? Where does all this monasticism come from? Why is This tradition not only in Christianity, which we're focusing on, but in many other religious Traditions as well?
Speaker 3:Well, i guess I would say I don't feel qualified to disertate on non-western Christian, non-western monasticism, but I mean within Particularly Latin Christianity or Roman Catholicism. I mean I would say that the kind of major Movement really was Benedict in the 6th century and obviously monasticism itself is older than that. But I think for the Western world really are what we think of sometimes when we conjure up an image of monks really comes from Benedict's ideas about monasticism in the 6th century. So he wrote a rule for living in the 6th century, for his own monastery, we think, and that eventually became sort of the blueprint for Virtually all not every, but almost all other Western monastic orders and the rule itself actually Why I find interesting, where it may have some modern resonance, is actually how reasonable it really is. I mean we get this idea that again, monasticism is very strict and as I've read it a number of times and occasionally use it in class, i see how reasonable it really is and how Easy, relatively easy, it would be to follow. And in class I make the connection that in fact actually students at Berry College are awfully close to living that rule even now.
Speaker 3:I mean, who knows about the celibacy part? but as far as they have to obey. They have to obey right. They have the Viking code they have to follow, and a lot of them don't have a lot of stuff. They live in a place that's somewhat isolated from the community. We call it the Barry bubble after that. That's right, and also, too, i mean one of the things. This wasn't actually that evident in Benedict's rule, but it was later on that monasteries were, or could be, very beautiful places, and Barry certainly qualifies for that. So I think in many ways you can see a connection even between sixth century monasticism and 21st century living without even actually having or being, or professing to be a monk.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I tell them that too, i'm in my class.
Speaker 3:You're actually living the life of a monk here, Yeah, yeah, closer than you think.
Speaker 1:And I remember Peter Lawler wrote an article for freshman when I was the director of the Freshman Center. He wrote an article that I used. He didn't refer to it as the monastic life, but he said look at this time that you are able to sort of set aside the bigger concerns of earning our students work but they don't work full-time jobs and all the responsibilities that you're able to set aside and really ponder the big questions of life and to really contemplate what life is all about. And I always thought it was a good encouragement for our students to use this time contemplating what the rest of your life might look like and what's really important to you. And I do fear that our students not just our students but just college students in general and Americans in general we really spend so much time focusing on thinking of college as a way to credentialize ourselves so we can have good careers. And that is the only concern where, in the liberal arts, i think that what we're doing here is so much more than that.
Speaker 3:But I mean Barry itself has an even more direct connection, because again in Benedictine monasticism work was very important. I mean, a monk would spend about half their day maybe in church, but also then working, and Barry of course sort of preaches the gospel of our work program, and so again it's really an interesting close connection. Yeah, it's aura at the laborer pray and work.
Speaker 4:So that's the life of the monk, the Benedictine monk.
Speaker 1:Wow, i'm just not thinking. when Barry first formed, it probably had a very monastic feel to it.
Speaker 3:I'm sure, yeah, even more isolated and without the distractions that we have in the 21st century.
Speaker 1:And work was even higher priority And the just devotion was much more communal.
Speaker 3:required chapel services and such, just like sixth century monasticism.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how about that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and just consider all the other trappings we still have. We wear gowns or edemic gowns, which are kind of like vestiges of the monks habits. So that's still there. A lot of the titles in our administration Provost and Dean they come from religious background. I mean, those are all based on church hierarchy and all.
Speaker 1:I don't get a chance to tell the story very often, so I'm just going to jump way off the tracks here for a second and talk about the word provost. When I first came to Barry we just call it the vice president of academic affairs. We didn't have it. It's too long. It's too long. And President Collie, who was very much had a heart for liberal arts, changed it to provost, to have that connection to the medieval scholarship. And when I was the chair of faculty assembly our provost, doyle Mathis, resigned, retired, and we bought him a little fancy pen set And it was supposed to say Doyle Mathis, provost, with the years on it, but it was spelled incorrectly. They spelled it provast And so I gave it to him. I said I'm going to go get this fixed, but I just want to give this to you now at the ceremony. But it says provast. And when I picked it up from him he said in his typically dry humor well, i just assume provast was the past tense for provost.
Speaker 3:Good for him.
Speaker 1:That's pretty clever. It was very clever. It has nothing to do with our conversation here, But don't get to tell that provast joke very often. What is not like the monastic life here? The article in the New York Times focused on all the distractions that we have, that we constantly have our heads in the phones And I think about my own life where I've constantly have noise going on, even though I live by myself. I've got noise everywhere And I fill myself up with all kinds of distractions. Is the goal of monastic life to get rid of that, So there can be much more straight forward focus on God? Or is there something even more important than that? I know that I tend to think of monks and nuns as living a relatively ascetic life, giving up of worldly pleasures and worldly pursuits.
Speaker 4:Yeah well actually the most. The part of the course that the students love the most is the part on sin We talk about. We talk about how the seven deadly sins came. There used to be eight, which one got kicked out. No, it's a long story And it's a little bit. Yeah, so there was a sin of sadness too, and but actually the evolution of sin is very interesting, but it's complicated And another podcast for sure.
Speaker 4:And that will sell People. Love sin really. And that's the part of the course that the students really I mean they really get excited about it And we talk about did you say they love sin or love to?
Speaker 4:sin. They love to talk about sin, which may be a sin, i don't know, but no, actually not It's. We have to reflect on our sinfulness, right, that's part of that's where that is a practice that Christians have always done to reflect on our sins and to number them and to count them, which is how we got to the seven. But anyway, yeah, one of the sins is sometimes it's called in modern translations, sloth laziness, but it's not, it's a Kedia, a Cedia in Greek, right, and that is actually kind of a almost like a spiritual boredom, right, and you're distracted, right. So so in my, in my syllabus, i say that, yeah, you, really, i realize people have phones, they have devices. I don't ban them, like some people do, but I say you should realize that if you're constantly looking at your phone during class, you are perhaps guilty of the sin of a Cedia And so. But that is the whole idea within the tradition that goes back even before there were organized monasteries, going back to the desert fathers of Egypt And the pastors get accused of guilt trips.
Speaker 1:That's yeah, you can use your phones, but you might be committing a sin.
Speaker 4:So. So the idea is that the, if your focus is on your vocation as a monk or as a contemplative, as a Christian, right to focus on God, to pray and not get distracted, but also, if you're doing your work, focus on your work and not be distracted by other things or desire to be somewhere else than you are right, that's simple. So so that the presence of distraction and more and more distractions today than perhaps ever before because of technology, that is something that we're struggling with And that is one way in which you know at least, but that is in the monasteries too. The monks were distracted too. I mean, even in the desert, that was the Noonday demon which, during the, at that time, at the height of the day, when it's the hot and all, you're just like why am I here, why can't I be somewhere else? Right, so?
Speaker 1:so that it's always been there, but we'll find distractions, no matter where we're going, we'll find distractions, no matter where we are.
Speaker 2:So just calling out Marshall.
Speaker 1:He answered my text during a contemplative retreat.
Speaker 2:Well the brain is made that way. Yeah, i know, i mean yeah the brain is inevitably going to go in different directions, And I think one of the keys to contemplative prayer is to accept distractions and really recognize that. recognizing calmly, peacefully, gently the distraction and moving back to your central focus, which is openness to God, is that return is really the is key to the prayer. The distractions are not only inevitable, but they're really necessary in contemplative prayer.
Speaker 1:Well, here you are, our probably our foremost practitioner in this group here, and this is more secular, but I remember as a child being all those relaxation exercises that the professionals would have you do in classes and elsewhere and say think of a pretty street and a peaceful place and take away all your other concerns. And as soon as they said that, all the other concerns just started popping. Yeah, they do That. Those exercises were brutal for me because my mind would immediately wander elsewhere. Yeah, and no matter how hard I tried to bring myself back. So what are some of the key practices that that you do or that you encourage others to do? You said that you work on spiritual formation from a contemplative perspective. So what are some things that folks out there and myself teach me? Marshall teach me.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, you know, michael brought up Lectio Divina, and that's a prayer form that is really very rich and that brings in a lot. I mean, there's the. it begins with the Lectio, as Michael described it. You spend time with a piece of scripture, perhaps a verse, and just open yourself to it, as opposed to getting in a very analytical mode And I think that's my problem right there to avoid the analytical part of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a challenge, especially in this setting. But that's what you, that's what you do, you allow what comes from that, you meditate on it which is, again, as Michael was mentioning, that's often imaginative and take yourself there or maybe there's a concept or an idea or a feeling and metatario is kind of related to the term for chewing the cud. I mean, you're literally just turning it over and allowing yourself to be with it and experience it and kind of spontaneously come into the oratorio speaking to God. That's what I, that's the way I pray to all my life. That's the way most of us got started.
Speaker 2:If it gets to pouring your heart out to God, that's wonderful. You speak, but then you reach a point of coming into quiet listening And that's where people really freak out, right. That's where you try to kind of let go of your talking in your chatter and you allow and you open up to God. Very important to not overly conceptualize God or concepts of God. We usually need to let go, however lovely they may be, and just be open to God as the mysterious, loving being that God is.
Speaker 1:And how do we trust that, when we're open like that, that what we're hearing and what we're sensing is truly from God and not just one of my own inner desires coming out, or the devil.
Speaker 2:Well, one of the best teachers of that was Ignatius of Loyola.
Speaker 2:In the spiritual exercises, the citation Yeah, his teaching, he's really the doctor of this as far as I'm concerned. And it requires, first of all, allowing that you're not going to have a written out black and white way to chart that out. There are a few basic standards, like love is the motive to always return to and you seek to do the loving thing, to have the loving attitude. There are those kinds of parameters, of course, but allowing that, the Holy Spirit, that you listen to the Holy Spirit for the leading on questions like that, with a loving attitude, scripture helps. Again, it's a critical resource for anyone in the contemplative life.
Speaker 2:But discernment that Ignatius taught, these two do go together very well. I mean, discernment is a process of this opening up, but when you get to this stage, the contemplatio, the good method, is not the essence of it. But centering prayer is a very good And it's a. That's a rather modern teaching on contemplative prayer developed by Thomas Keating and elaborated on by Basel Pennington. Thomas Merton, i think was has been very influential for people taking that up And that is where one takes a. What a sacred word For me it's the Hebrew word Ruach, and and which means both breath and spirit.
Speaker 1:And what's the other word? I'm missing there.
Speaker 2:Even wind I mean but, but, and as those distractions come, you call up that word and it takes you back to that open hearted awareness and keep coming back. And that's, i think, especially because we're we tend to be very freaked out by being quiet and letting go of thoughts. That's a it's a useful way to get into it.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, and I do think that those distractions, michael, you said are more prevalent today than ever before, although always have existed, but it does seem like it. if you want to get distracted, you can easily get distracted. There are more opportunities for that. Larry, you did a great job connecting the monastic life to the college experience and specifically the college experience here at Berry, but, talking with you prior, a great connection to the military as well. And did you find your experience in the military to be one of a monk?
Speaker 3:I do now. I didn't really realize it then, but I see, one of the other things I try to again explain to students is that for a person to have given up the things they needed, to give up to go into a monastery though it might seem by our standards to be a great sacrifice maybe by their standards not as much And I compare it to being in the US military, which I was as a young man, and you really end up doing a lot of the same things. I mean you have rules you have to obey. You're not exactly poor, but I mean you're not exactly well paid either. Again, the salves you of the chastity. It comes whether you want that or not, and sometimes you're often isolated.
Speaker 3:And yet every year hundreds of thousands of young men and women enlist in the US military. Now, while it's not everyone's cup of tea, it's not so horrible, so absolutely god-awful, that people won't do it. So, in other words, we can imagine ourselves, at least at some point maybe, doing something like that. So it's not really that hard of a stretch or shouldn't be for someone to have imagined a sixth century person maybe willing to give up a lot to actually enter into a monastery. But yeah, i certainly feel that way now, though I have to admit I did not feel that way 40 years ago, when I was in.
Speaker 4:The other institutions that are kind of like monasteries or prisons. they even used to be called penitentiaries. right Place was where you do penance And they're living cells just like months, and so the idea is you're supposed to reflect on your crimes, which are sins, right, and so there is kind of a connection between the modern and that's an interesting. the Quakers were involved in the development of the modern prison, so there is a there is kind of a connection with the religious background.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a tough order, for sure, though. Exactly.
Speaker 1:Interesting And penitentiaries would not fit into. What the question I was about to ask and that the New York Times article prompted me to think? these classes in which the contemplative life is kind of the living like a monk or a nun, are encouraged, in some cases required, like no talking for the whole semester without special permission from the, the abbot, right From the professor. I was thinking the emphasis in the article was so that they can contemplate what's important in life. But many people who went into monasteries, many people who go into the military, already have kind of defined what's important in life. Right, i am going to serve my country. Right, i am doing this out of a commitment to God. That commitment is already there, rather than contemplating what is important. And so, had I thought of it, i would have one of the monk or bunk questions I would have asked would be do you have to have this fervent commitment to God or the military or something above you and higher than you that make you willing to do the kinds of sacrifice that are asked and required?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't think so. I didn't think so. Then I mean, I have told students and I've talked to about it was that I mean, yeah, maybe patriotism was number 10 on the list, but it really wasn't number one, And I don't know that when I was in, a lot of people felt that way either.
Speaker 1:And, i think, plenty of other motivations for making the commitment to the military other than right That's right Love of country.
Speaker 3:And I think that it's the same for monks. I mean, i know there were a lot of monks in monasteries that maybe weren't absolutely sure why they were there, and so I think that you do get and in fact that's one of the things I argue is that by going into a monastery you did get a sense of mission, which I do think that people are searching for and sometimes don't find, particularly college-age students. So the monastery did give you a mission. I mean, working for the monastery, you're doing certain things that they ask you to do, and so it provided you with purpose and mission, and the military does that. That's true.
Speaker 4:I can give a couple of examples where people enter into monasteries not knowing what they're getting into. So one is my monk, st Gregory of Nadek. I mean, what happened in his case was that he was his mother died in his infancy, maybe even as a result of the pregnancy, and so his father had dedicated him to a monastery and he never left. But he went in as an infant, as a child, took monastic orders as a teenager. So that's one example where you're kind of forced into a monastery. The other example is not really a monastic but it was going even earlier. I mean, he is a monastic but this was one of the Desert Fathers of Agrius I lived in the late fourth century and interesting history, and so he's actually the originator of the List of the Sins.
Speaker 4:He had the eight evil thoughts. So he was very well educated Greek and he lived in the imperial city, constantinople, and of course, as with any city, there are a lot of distractions. He ended up having an adulterous affair with a woman And one night he had a vision, a dream that the husband of the woman had discovered the affair, and he woke up like, just completely, i have to get out of here right away. He ended up in Jerusalem, And in Jerusalem he thought it would be Holy City, but there are still so many distractions. Eventually he went into the Egyptian desert and became one of the Desert Fathers, right? So the idea is, yeah, he was kind of in one way, yes, i guess he was seeking God, and in another way he was running away from his past, yes. So there are a lot of different motivations that get people into monasticism, i think.
Speaker 2:I want to give a real decisive yes or no. Okay, i agree that if we look at it historically, there are times when people come in without necessarily any particular spiritual intent or clear idea of their focus or their goal or what they're willing to give their life for. And certainly in the history of monasticism and the church period we have times when people were buying into these positions or where intent was put aside. But I think, if we look at it in its as Benedict, i think would have it. I mean, one of the most classic aspects of the rule is his teaching on humility and the importance of being in a conversation with the abbot and the abbot not just being an administrator but a spiritual guide, a spiritual director, having some accountability about your inner life, is also very much about at least monasticism as it is intended or as we strive for it to be Yes.
Speaker 2:Going back to your earlier great question about how much very or a situation like this is like monasticism, how much just a quick aside.
Speaker 1:did you all notice, larry and Michael, the way you're supposed to be a guest? Your earlier great question? That's how the conversation moves.
Speaker 2:I see, Well, I'm a psychologist, so I'm supposed to have these kinds of social skills.
Speaker 1:but anyway, well done.
Speaker 2:But? but in this setting, okay, you can have all these trappings, you can have all these similarities and parallels in between the military and life in the monastery, but you don't have to have accountability for your inner life. You don't have to have. You don't meet with your advisor and talk about how you're doing with humility.
Speaker 1:Yes. Or, as John Wesley would always ask how is it with your soul? Yeah, how is it? Yeah, that's right. That's right. Well, marsha, we don't have monasteries on every corner and we don't really have those connections to accountability. So what would a person do in modern day who wanted to live a more contemplative life, to have kind of that, that monk life, love and monk life that you all said is possible in this day and age, without those structures, without those institutions in place, How would one go about doing that?
Speaker 2:Well, i guess, in a sense, take community seriously, i think, is one of the first things to say okay, my church, community is important to me. It's not anything, it's not a monastery, it's a bunch of people. There are people with various different levels of faith, commitment or intentionality, and so forth.
Speaker 1:And they come and go to, especially as mobile as we are as a society today.
Speaker 2:But and I've struggled a lot with that about the church, Augustine said look, except whatever comes and goes in the church, it's all by grace, and don't get too upset about the person next to you not being as intentional as the person on the other side. Just trust that that Grace's has worked there, participate in worship, have that kind of grounding in a community context for worship. It's in everyday life. As far as contemplative life, I'd say that kind of thing is arguably necessary And I know a lot of people would disagree with me on that but not sufficient. It's important to remember what I was saying earlier about centering prayer.
Speaker 2:Contemplative prayer. It's always about returning. The life is going to jerk us and pull us in a lot of different directions And the contemplative life is about returning. I mean, when I was a middle manager here at the college, now as a businessman trying to run a small business of psychotherapy in the public, there's a lot that jerks me in a lot of different directions, but intentionally returning to God, to openness to God, is critical to it And recognizing. I mentioned discernment. Life is full of decisions, but discernment is a lot more than decision And living a life of prayer and really, really trusting God and taking seriously that this is making the practical decisions of my life, or not just my calculations and all on me. This is something Living one's life with an attitude of loving, collaboration with a loving God is crucial. So you don't have to look all that different than anyone else, but those are some keys to me to living contemplatively in everyday life.
Speaker 1:Great. Thank you, michael. Why don't you close us up with a conversation going back to the beginning? What did your students really hunger for in this course? What made them like it so much? And what I'm thinking here is our culture is bigger is better, louder is better. The mega church you want this loud, bright, vibrant experience And in your life you want to do something big for God, you want to dedicate, and it just feels the ethic of accomplishment seems to work kind of against this contemplative, quieter, calmer type of faith expression, and maybe that's a false dichotomy that I'm making there. But what is it that your students, who are living in this culture of bigger is better, what did they get out of?
Speaker 4:this, i think. Well, part of it, i think and I think some of it was my intent and is that there is the sense in which the course is meant to be kind of a counter to a lot of the noise and the ambition of the world. That is not a bad thing, but there's a sense in which people are so distracted and so busy And I like to think of my course as kind of almost like a safe space where people can just reflect and slow down and not really And I've gotten that response from many of my students That's what it's for. It's not all about just action and doing things and winning awards, but it's about something more than that.
Speaker 1:I don't want to put you on the spot here, but how many papers did you require?
Speaker 4:Oh, okay, so actually.
Speaker 1:And I say this because And here's what- I did.
Speaker 4:And when I began to do it I thought this is going to be terrible. I'd be slammed in the evals, the valuations and all. So I told the students, i had them write I don't know five, six journals And it could be anything. I'm going to get really free, open. They can do whatever I want, whatever they want, right? So one of the students like we were talking about death, of course that comes up And one student asked what's the most beautiful cemetery you've been to?
Speaker 4:And we had this. I said Myrtle Hill. Of course, in Rome, georgia is beautiful. And so one of the students said I like to do is my spiritual exercise go to a cemetery and just reflect on it. And because I told him a story about the Desert Fathers which involves something like that, where one of the Desert Fathers told one of the younger monks go to a cemetery and reflect. It was a little bit more complicated than that, but I won't get into it Anyway And he wrote this beautiful journal about what it meant to see these, the gravestones, and the impact it had.
Speaker 4:But what I did in the course is that there were no okay, there was no specific deadlines on the journals. They could write at any time they want. They could do it all at the end if they wanted to. Very few students did that And I thought in the student evaluations I would get slammed on that. They'd say I need more structure, i need deadlines. No one said that I'm going to say we love that. We love the kind of freedom where I could submit and one and now. I'm not necessarily recommending this for people And maybe it just works for this course.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say it fits kind of the theme of that course It made it more.
Speaker 4:There's not as much. It's a low stress kind of thing, And I don't know. I mean it was one comment I got actually it may not have been this course, But anyway. But I've gotten comments from one or two students in the evaluations saying that I feel so stressed out And when I come to your class it's kind of like an oasis. I feel better, Short of sleep, Yeah, I mean. Yeah, it's not like Larry's class. I'm so stressed in this class. I come through a class and I feel just more just relaxed, And so that's the thing. I don't know if that has a place in that. I think it has a place. The administrator is going to hate me for this, but I hate the term high impact. Right, It's like people are throwing things at you. That's the thing. The administrators are pushing this thing. You have to have a high impact, whatever it's called High impact.
Speaker 1:High impact practices.
Speaker 4:I like to think of my course as low impact. It's soft, it's smooth. We're not going to be bombarded by things I think it does make. I mean, in the original sense, what they intend by high impact is it's supposed to make an impression on you. I think the course does that, but I just don't like the term high impact.
Speaker 1:Well, so often we define high impact by you're going to go do something.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You're going to experience this rather than you're going to sit back and reflect, and I do think many of us more in the liberal arts would like to hear high impact as, oh, i really thought about something in a new way that I never experienced before And that comes in a very low impact way from your course Barbecue.
Speaker 3:Low and slow, exactly.
Speaker 4:That's good. Can I use that? Yeah, yeah, my permission Yeah.
Speaker 1:Great. Was there anything else that we missed, Marshall? Anything that we didn't talk about in terms of personal practice and in terms of the contemplative life that we need to hear about?
Speaker 2:I think there's a lot more that we could say. We could talk about converting our love for travel into pilgrimages. Okay, i like that. We could talk about that. We could make everything sacred, i know That's right. Speaking of work one of my favorites, brother Lawrence, the practice of the presence of God uses that phrase, citation Uses that phrase. Make a virtue of necessity, a lot just in terms of your everyday life and work. And yeah, that conversion, converting a lot of what we do into You can take anything that you do, as long as you're not doing it outside of loving intentions, and you can convert it with your heart.
Speaker 1:Find a way to make it sacred.
Speaker 2:Yeah, take it from the heart Awesome.
Speaker 1:Larry, how about you Anything else? Oh wait, we're being out of time. Sorry, larry, you get the last word.
Speaker 3:Well, i guess I would say it's amazing how flexible all this is, and that's the way it's always been. It was that way all the way through the Middle Ages And apparently it still remains that way today.
Speaker 1:So it's a sense of skepticism or a sense of caution there?
Speaker 3:No, no, not at all. I mean actually, i kind of optimism actually that there's a place for all this And there'll continue to be a place for this.
Speaker 1:Well, marshall, thank you so much. Was it painful the first time out? No, not at all painful. Good, larry Back here.
Speaker 3:I was really an honor to be here again.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, it's an honor to have all of you take time out of your summers Not so interesting summers, it sounds like, based on the beginning conversation, but it's still taking a time. And, yeah, please ask me again. You know That's right, absolutely Full time. And, michael, thank you for coming up with the idea and sharing about your class. Thank you, i enjoyed this very much.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, i want to thank you, our audience, for sitting around the table with us today. I hope that we have provided you with some food for thought, giving you something to chew on. And if you've made it this far in this podcast I don't want to sound like I'm begging here, but go ahead and please consider subscribing and rating and reviewing Church Potluck wherever you are downloading it. We certainly appreciate your support And until we gather around the table next time. This has been Church Potluck. Thanks for listening And I'm going to let it keep on recording for a second, since we've always had good conversations afterward, but everyone doing all. Right, you can take your microphones off, but we'll just let go. Well, that was fun.
Speaker 3:Good.
Speaker 2:I want to take your courses. I worked here all this time because I really wished I was a student. all that time in there Didn't get to do it.
Speaker 4:I have the same. I mean, i always want to take courses with other people. I'll do this again, but yeah.
Speaker 1:It is definitely one of the things that I have experienced doing. The podcast is hearing. Well, i talk about this in my class and oh that is so cool And in your class it seems like it would be very popular and a different tact. Was it difficult for you to make that change in your style, Because I imagine that you are very analytical, Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4:So because I came in obviously in philosophy, this was kind of a move away from my usual way of teaching philosophy, which is much more analytic, much more very rigorous, and I don't think the course is non-rigorous but it's a different approach. But part of it was just sort of the evolution of the way I've been thinking about philosophy. So it's not me. There's a trend in modern philosophy that we need to recover the ancient way of thinking about philosophy as a way of life, that philosophy is not an academic discipline so much as a teachings about what's good in life and how to live a good life. And that's really become very, very big. And I know we had Megan Sullivan from Notre Dame earlier I think it was earlier this year she came to talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, January Yeah.
Speaker 4:And she's part of that big goddess. That in the good life thing that we're trying to replicate here.
Speaker 1:And one of the Lumen Lectures next year is a Wolf.
Speaker 4:A Burslau Wolf. I thought he was here before. He was here before.
Speaker 2:He was here once And I think he's talking. Yeah, he does that at Yale.
Speaker 4:He does that at Yale too, something similar.
Speaker 1:And I could be wrong, but I think he's coming back.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's good. I would be great if he did, because he's really good, but anyway. So part of what made it more natural was that that talk was already happening in philosophy, and then a trend was already happening, and then it was just not much of a leap to get to. Well, what about the Christian tradition and their contemplative practices? And it turns out that there's a lot of common ground between what, for example, the ancient Stoics were doing in terms of their practices and what Christians were doing, and there seems to be a little bit of cross-pollinization, i guess, between the two.
Speaker 2:You know yeah, i thought about that a good bit too that philosophy kind of got away from love of wisdom to let's try to figure out why Newton got it all so smart Yeah.
Speaker 4:I don't know more like yeah, let me tear down your argument. I know, but which is nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 2:It's got its place.
Speaker 2:But you know, i was thinking as you know, i was a philosophy major in college every now and then I would say, all shucks, i studied philosophy one time too.
Speaker 2:But I was thinking lately about my study of philosophy and my spiritual development And I realized that one of the things that just really I got really into as an undergraduate so many years ago was, you know, epistemology, and I was more. I wasn't so much interested in, you know, those figuring out why science is so smart. But the limits of science, the limits of learning, and you know when, kant kind of took it down to okay, you can't cross the line from the phenomenal to the new middle, you're going to have to start thinking about morals now because you're not going to be able to do that empirically. I realized that for me, i think. I think why was I so into that when I was a kid? And I now realize it was because I kind of wanted to find that edge where you have to open up And my major training was in sociology of knowledge, because it's very much the same thing.
Speaker 1:You know just where, how do we collectively decide what's true and what's not, and that there are limits of what science can do in terms of answering that. So I was trying to find a way to elevate faith to a higher level, and it just kind of pulled science down to a lower level. There's all kinds of things that we just can't know, no matter how much we try.
Speaker 2:But I really love. I mean, i would be interested in your course too. I love studying how it all developed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, i mean because monasticism itself. It's like there's certain points where it starts to flag and the values of society have changed, like the 10th century or something And then all of a sudden there's this new variant that comes out, that kind of meets the need, and then yeah, it goes okay. And then a few centuries later, you know, another variant emerges because trends have changed already. And so, at least for me, you see the middle ages. Sometimes it's like this one static thing and it never changes, but it was changing constantly, just like our own society. And so you see that again and again And there's always the kernel of it.
Speaker 1:So are you saying that the different traditions are rising because of particular issues in the particular.
Speaker 3:oh very cool, that makes perfect sense now that you said that, but I hadn't thought of it that way. Christianity, i mean, you can almost sort of you know, plot it on a timeline, What was going on politically, and you know what had happened in the sense to Christianity. and then all of a sudden there's this new monasticism, that kind of captures people's hearts and their wallets, and then you see it again.
Speaker 2:Well, you, know heart saying wallets. You know this is my oversimplified non-historians. You know kind of way I have it It summarized in my mind. But you know, when the Roman Empire fell they turned really to the church for some stabilization and then a lot of money goes pouring into these monasteries and so a lot of that corrupts the spirituality of it. And then there are movements of, hey, we need to get more intentional. So you have that new movement, you have the orders that come up that to correct that the same corrupting influences, a new movement comes up and that's just been the evolution of it all throughout. and spirituality is such an important part of it because it's people saying we've got to get back to the spiritual heart of what we're about periodically every few centuries.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's an excellent point because you know, again, like the Cistercians around the early 12th century, everything, the economy is going great, people are doing better, and also the Cistercians come along, it's like we're going to turn it back. We've all gotten too worldly, we've all gotten too prosperous. So, you know, their monasteries are going to be really plain, they're really going to work, you know, because they'd sort of fall in love with that. So but again, what I think is interesting is how they're that these things would sort of emerge at the same time, just when they were necessary, just when it didn't seem like it had a purpose anymore. Then there'd be this sort of other thing to come along to kind of reinvigorate the purpose of it.
Speaker 1:I wish in the episode that I had brought up the concept of asceticism a little bit more. Do y'all think that's a necessary part of the monastic life? Oh, i do.
Speaker 2:I'll give you my opinion. you all scholars can disagree, but to me, so much of the heart of it is freedom, and I love thinking about the paradox of asceticism, because you're thinking of it as restricting your freedom, down, down, down, down down. But the actual purpose is to let go of the attachments that you know that own us, so that we can be free to love. So I think it is very.
Speaker 1:It sounds very eastern too very.
Speaker 2:I think that's great. That's big part of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we're east and west really made. Yeah, i mean I think I see monasticism as organized asceticism, right, so there were ascetics, but they were kind of independent operators in Egypt, in the desert, but then they had to organize. I mean, they had to. I mean even there they were living. Often they lived as communities And so once you put an order or discipline around it, around an ascetic practice or people who are ascetics, then you've got a monastic.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you've got communal monasticism And you can still have that I mean like anchorites.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So, you have anchorites in a communal monastery, you know sort of in the monastery, but then still a little bit separate. So Hildegard of Bingen.
Speaker 4:Yeah, julian of Norge. We read Julian's works And students really love that. I mean, they found it intriguing. Just the idea of an anchor is a very interesting idea. But also the other thing I say about the Tell the students is so in my ancient medieval philosophy class which I taught in, which is strictly philosophy, i taught in the fall all of the philosophers we read are men, right, and because I mean Aquinas, augustine, these are the sort of the you know, the great philosophers of the Western world. But then when you move over to the mystics and the contemplatives, suddenly you know you have women And a lot of people argued that. Well, you know, they were kind of doing philosophy, just that they didn't have the opportunity to go to university. But you know, they're still learning. But so I said that you know, we didn't have any women in the ancient medieval course, but now we're doing Catherine of Sienna, julian of Norwich, hildegard of Bingen, you know we have Saint Teresa of Avila. So now the women are there and they have a voice that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich are very dear to me. those two really are very. And Augustine, i mean I think his confessions just asked Teresa, his confessions are a tremendous resource for really thinking about contemplative life. I mean she kept referring back to him and his journey in the confessions.
Speaker 1:Was the experience for women in the convent significantly different than from the men, or was it very much modeled similarly?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's pretty similar, although you know, some people have argued that women had it better because, you know, the head of a female abbey was female, right? So in other words, you know, the middle ages offered women more positions of real responsibility than they would until the modern age, and it did offer an education as well. So this is, i mean, they couldn't go to university when those came around, but they could get an education in a monastery, so yeah, so I think in many ways they're very similar to male monasteries, sometimes even joint monasteries. I mean, there were monasteries where there was actually a male side to it and a female side in the same institution.
Speaker 2:Yeah, john of the Cross, Teresa of Avila actually, i guess it was kind of a She was reforming the Carmelite movement into much more. Yeah, and then along comes little John. He was literally, he was a little tiny John 411 is what I used to call it, and I think Big Teresa too, i mean but And really kind of starts the men's branch of the reform. So it actually started with the women.
Speaker 4:It started with the Yeah. The same kind of interplay is going on with Franciscans, with Claire too, because of. Grant Claire, and she did found a. I mean I'll just quote her Franciscans are more The male, franciscans are more out in the world there. Yeah, but her order was a true monastery.
Speaker 3:But they got interested in That was partly because of the danger of them being out there. Yeah, that's right. So I mean, in other words, it was okay for male Franciscans. Keep the women. Because theoretically they wouldn't travel, yeah, they wouldn't fall into temptation.
Speaker 2:But women might, yeah, so You know, one fun distinction, if you wanted to think about it, that I'm considering for looking at contemplation is the apophatic versus cataphatic. We talk about that.
Speaker 4:That's big. That's a big distinction. We read that in the course.
Speaker 2:And it can be a lot of fun, i think. In a way, ultimately, i think in living it, it all breaks down. You know you really don't have one or the other But thinking of, okay, there's this angle on it where you're just really letting go and entering the darkness and silence and going into emptiness very Buddhist-like in that sense. But then the cataphatic you have. Ignatius was really big on imagery and imagination and Julian's powerful Yes, they have different views, And you know.
Speaker 2:So just the use of the concrete image as the medium to God versus the emptiness and darkness.
Speaker 4:Yeah, one thing I tried to underscore in the course is I'm because we talked about it philosophically, theologically, the apophatic, cataphatic. But this actually plays out in the way you pray, the way you live. So you see that, for example, meister Eckhart is more apophatic and is prayer. The prayer is sort of that you end up not words prayers without words.
Speaker 4:And that's also true in the East as well, with the Hezekast movement. But then you have, like the Jesuits, who are much more visually oriented. You're not emptying yourself of all these images and words, so that plays out even in the way the spirituality is conducted.
Speaker 1:This conversation was just further evidence that I should have been recording all of our after conversations.
Speaker 4:I'll go ahead and include that as, like the second helping that we talked about at the very beginning of doing this, going into greater detail, the other- thing I want to mention is that I've actually have a handful of students in both times I've taught it who identified as either atheists or agnostics, and so when I first taught it, i actually one of my advisees who I know, who I knew was an atheist because she was very outspoken about it she signed up for the course. I said, oh, i don't know how this is going to work out.
Speaker 2:How is she?
Speaker 4:going to deal with reading all these And it turned out she loved the course. It was like at the end of it she said This is like my favorite class, I take it. And so that's kind of humbled me, because I used to be like, Okay, this student is going to like this, The student is not. Now, I don't care. Yeah, just you know, whoever you are, come as you are, whatever, I don't care, I'm not trying to convert anyone And they didn't. I mean they, they, they come as atheists, they leave as atheists. Or they come as Christians, they leave as Christians. But the the, the attitude that I get, that the universal view I've gotten from comments, is like what this has done is it has broadened my, my understanding. I didn't realize Christianity was so big and diverse, I was going to say, because I only know my church, I know my megachurch And I figured that was all there was to Christianity. That's a common reaction I get.
Speaker 1:Now I see no, this is, this is much bigger than I ever imagined, And I would think that for for atheists, that all they know is a certain kind of image that is often bad. You know all the all the abuses that go on and the things that get a lot of attention and might see oh there, there, there are sincere Christians out there. Maybe they're 500 years ago, but still they're not all shiny happy people.
Speaker 4:I just. I just watched that the other day, just because you mentioned it, and then it's discussed.
Speaker 1:I want to do a podcast. I want to do a podcast on it, but nobody, nobody came forward to say I would do it but I wasn't going to do it because I didn't watch it.
Speaker 4:But then I watched it and I did the Hillsong thing too, but in any event. So if that was my only view of Christianity, i would want to stay away from any Christian. You guys are toxic. I don't want. I don't want to be. I want to be anything other than a Christian.
Speaker 1:There's about a half dozen documentaries that have come out recently.
Speaker 4:That's all I knew about the faith, about the religion.
Speaker 1:I would say this is like the worst religion in the world And there's such a close tie with Christianity and conservative politics in a way that doesn't doesn't have to be, and, and so people who are not conservative politically. sometimes we'll reject Christian faith right off the right off the bat.
Speaker 4:That was one of my intents with the course.
Speaker 2:I was trying to say don't confuse Christianity with the way it presents itself often or is presented, And your course really does give people a view of realities and practices of Christianity that the news media is not going to care about Well, occasionally.
Speaker 4:but the news media right now is going to be much more. Ask them at the end. One of the exam questions was who is your favorite mystic? And I mean many people said Julian, but a lot of people said St Francis And they like his. You know the way he's been. You know as understood as someone who embraces nature and finds God through the natural world. that, especially to the students who are more environmentally minded, they found that very, very eye-opening.
Speaker 1:I love these conversations afterward just as much as the podcast itself. So